


Night Terrors

by Bulletproof_love



Series: PTSD!Mouse [1]
Category: Chicago PD (TV)
Genre: Angst and Feels, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst and Romance, Angst with a Happy Ending, Anxiety, Anxiety Attacks, Comfort/Angst, Depression, Dreams and Nightmares, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Falling In Love, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Happy, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Light Angst, Love, Mental Health Issues, Narcotics, Night Terrors, Nightmares, Past Drug Use, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Recovery, References to Depression, References to Drugs, Sobriety, Social Anxiety, Understanding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-05
Updated: 2018-12-05
Packaged: 2019-09-12 09:17:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,908
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16870267
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bulletproof_love/pseuds/Bulletproof_love
Summary: The effects of Afghanistan still haunt Greg 'Mouse' Gerwitz but there is someone in his life that makes things just that tiny bit brighter...





	Night Terrors

His heart was pounding, Mouse could hear his ragged breathes tearing through the dim room as his eyes snapped open. He found himself staring at the dimly lit ceiling, the warm glow from the child’s nightlight plugged in beside his bed bathing the room. He hated the darkness, he hated waking up disorientated, not knowing where he was. Just the thought of it made the muscles in his thorax constrict as he struggled to draw in breath. His lifted his right hand, placing his palm on the left side of his chest so that he could feel his heart pounding rhythmically underneath the fabric of his shirt.

His mind was racing, he could feel it tripping over itself as it flooded him with sights and sounds from a life he had left behind over two years ago. Even now he could still hear the blood rushing in his ears from the explosion that had led to his medical discharge, the stench of burned flesh clung to his nostrils making each and every breath nauseating. His stomach twisted as he swallowed back bile trying to shake the images that haunted his dreams. He closed his eyes, focusing on the constant thrum of his heart as he drew in a deep breath through his mouth, focusing on the sensation of his lungs filling up as he counted backwards from ten before he released it.

He practiced this method over and over again until he began to feel the tension in his muscles unfurling. He shifted his legs, kicking out in an attempt to dislodge the sheets that were restricting his movements. The glaze of sweat was already beginning to stick to his flesh as the cool Chicago air washed over his skin from the open window. He flinched as the sound of traffic resounded in his ears, flooding his senses until it was almost deafening.

Hypersensitivity was a symptom of his PTSD, Mouse was aware of that. After a panic attack or a nightmare it was always triggered, sometimes it made him feel like his skin was going to crawl right off his bones. That’s how it felt tonight, like the noise in his head was too loud and his body was starting to vibrate with the force of it.

In the past he would reached for the Oxy. The narcotic had been the only thing that had been able to dull his senses when the pain got so bad he could barely think straight. Now he was six months sober and still working the program as hard as could to make sure he stayed that way. At this point his sobriety meant the world to him, he’d been drifting for a while before Jay had got him into Narcotics Anonymous. He’d felt more like himself in the past six months than he had in a long time and he was committed to that.

His head was still hurting like a bastard when he swung his legs out of bed coming to perch on the edge of it. He rubbed his hands over his weary features before casting a glance at digital alarm clock on the nightstand.

4.47am

He wasn’t going back to sleep anytime soon, so he may as well head into work early and make a start on a few of those upgrades he’d been planning.

Busy hands, he thought, busy mind.

* * *

It was the scent of freshly ground coffee that alerted Mouse to her presence, the same way it always did whenever Charlie made an appearance in what she loosely termed ‘his domain’. She was wearing a yellow blouse today, tucked into black jeans that fitted her form like they were tailored for her skin. It was like a ray of sunshine had just walked into the room, he swore for a second he felt something warm blossom through the chill in his bones. Her sleek, copper hair was tied back today, cinched into an untidy bun at the nape of her neck.

He remembered the first time they had met, just over a four months ago. As the Ballistics Technician she had been brought in to help him catalog a large shipment of guns that had been confiscated during an overnight bust. He’d seen her a few times during his time at the precinct, usually he caught a glimpse of copper out of the corner of one eye before it disappeared from his periphery but that had been the first time they had been introduced.

_Eye contact, he remembered he was supposed to make eye contact when you spoke to people but he couldn’t bring himself to lift his gaze from Charlie’s outstretched hand as she held it out to him. There was silence for a moment before Jay cleared his throat coming to his rescue the same way he always seemed to these days._

_“Mouse isn’t really big on touching.” his brother in arms had clarified to the young woman standing before him._

_Oh.” she had said, her hand disappearing from his view. He listened for the disappointment in her voice and heard none as she pushed ahead. “That’s not a problem.”_

_That phrase, it resonated somewhere deep within him, he wanted to believe that but there was that familiar nagging voice in the back of his head that told him that it wasn’t true. Just because he didn’t hear the disappointment didn’t mean it wasn’t there._

“Do you mind if I set up here?” she had asked him gesturing to the large conference style they had created from several of the wooden desks that had been locked up in storage. Lined up neatly were the weapons that had been taken in, each one section organised in size order.

“Go ahead.” Mouse had uttered, gesturing at the wheelie chair alongside of his. Instead of sitting down, she simply placed her lather brown messenger bag on chair before walking along the length of the table, mentally processing each and every item. He watched her from his position at the top of the table, her movements purposeful as she spoke.

“Seeing a few old favorites here.” she had said, pointing out a Colt 45. She had paused for a moment, her eyes lingering over sawn off shotgun with adhesive residue around the barrel before she snorted with derision at the remains of a plastic bottle with duct tape clinging to the messy edges that had been put down beside it.

Despite himself and all of his anxieties Mouse had found the edges of his lips tipping up as he hooked his thumbs through the loops in his jeans and rocked back and forth on his heels.

“I figure someone tried to use it as a silencer. It came off the shotgun.” he informed her, mirth evident at his voice at the prospect. “It’s like taking a sub-woofer to a party and trying to stop it from shaking the walls when the bass kicks in.”

To his surprise Charlie laughed, a musical chuckle escaping those pert pink lips of hers.

That sound... Mouse didn’t think he had heard something quite that magical before that day and he had felt himself smiling as her eyes flickered up, meeting his.

For the first time in a long time he didn’t look away, instead he was drawn to her gaze. He found himself studying the dark chocolate hue around her pupils as they gave way to a much warmer color. Most people would have torn their gaze away after a couple of seconds but Charlie hadn’t. She’d stood before him, her body language relaxed as he allowed himself to drink in her pretty features. It should have made her uncomfortable but it didn’t, she waited until his vibrant blue eyes had flickered elsewhere before resuming her once over of the weaponry.

 That had been the first time the two of them had worked together but it hadn’t been the last, despite the fact he tended to enjoy his own space, he always welcomed her presence. Sometimes the two of them didn’t even talk. If it had been a tough day she seemed to pick up on it, she’d simply hook her phone up to the Bluetooth he had installed in here and push it towards him with the Google Music app open. The gesture meant the world to him, even though he could never admit it to her or anyone else. That simple act helped give him some resemblance of control again. He’d lost track of the hours that they’d spent working side by side together, not a word between them as they dismantled each gun with a precise methodology that left Mouse mentally questioning her background.

The sound of his name rolled off her tongue like sonnet, drawing him back to present as she stood on the opposite side of his counter top, holding out the coffee cup for him to take.

“I lost you there for a minute.” she said lightly, the left side of her mouth twisting up into that small smile of hers before she took sip of coffee.

“Yea, I was just thinking.” he informed her, returning her smile before removing the plastic lid from the top of cardboard cup. “You know about when we met.”

“That long, long night sitting in this place.” she recounted, using her hand to gesture at their surroundings. “Taking apart each gun, before running the serial number and ballistics seeing if we can get a case to pop, there are worse ways to spend a Friday.”

Mouse lifted the perfect vanilla latte to his lips. She was right about that, he didn’t like to think about the way he’d spent some of his Friday nights before Jay had helped him get sober.

“Speaking of Friday nights.” Mouse prompted himself, clearing his throat before he took the plunge. “A few of us are heading to Molly’s after shift if you feel like coming?”

“That’s the whole reason I came down here in the first place..” she informed him, wrapping both of her hands around her takeout cup in order to warm them. “Kim invited me to come out and celebrate Gabe’s birthday with a couple of drinks, I wanted to see if you were going too. I thought we could head over there together.”

Together...

He wasn’t sure what that meant exactly, it had been a long time since he had felt as comfortable around a woman as he did around Charlie. He didn’t feel like he had to put on a mask and hide who he was or explain the aspects of himself he was sure other people deemed to be weird. She accepted him for who he was and they enjoyed one another’s company, hence the reason the two of them shared a coffee most mornings.

“I’d like that.” he told her earnestly.

The smile on that pretty face of hers, it seemed stupid to say it lit up his world but in that moment he felt it happen. He felt the earth shift and the clouds that had been trailing after him since his nightmare last night, part for the first time in what felt like an age.

“Awesome.” she uttered before checking the silver watch that was fastened to her left wrist and pulling a face. “I’m running late, but text me the time and if you wanna meet here or upstairs.”

Mouse nodded vigorously, watching as that bright ball of sunshine disappeared from the room.

    

 


End file.
